John Marshall and the Constitution By Edward S. Corwin A Chronicle of the Supreme Court Volume 16 of the Chronicles of America Series ∴ Allen Johnson, Editor Assistant Editors Gerhard R. Lomer Charles W. Jefferys Abraham Lincoln Edition New Haven: Yale University Press Toronto: Glasgow, Brook & Co. London: Humphrey Milford Oxford University Press 1920 Copyright, 1919 by Yale University Press John Marshall and the Constitution Chapter Chapter Title Page I. The Establishment Of The National Judiciary 1 II. Marshall's Early Years 25 III. Jefferson's War On The Judiciary 53 IV. The Trial Of Aaron Burr 86 V. The Tenets Of Nationalism 121 VI. The Sanctity Of Contracts 147 VII. The Menace Of State Rights 173 VIII. Among Friends And Neighbors 198 IX. Epilogue 224 Bibliographical Note 233 Index 237 JOHN MARSHALL AND THE CONSTITUTION ∴ CHAPTER I. The Establishment Of The National Judiciary The monarch of ancient times mingled the functions of priest and judge. It is therefore not altogether surprising that even today a judicial system should be stamped with a certain resemblance to an ecclesiastical hierarchy. If the Church of the Middle Ages was "an army encamped on the soil of Christendom, with its outposts everywhere, subject to the most efficient discipline, animated with a common purpose, every soldier panoplied with inviolability and armed with the tremendous weapons which slew the soul," the same words, slightly varied, may be applied to the Federal Judiciary created by the American Constitution. The Judiciary of the United States, though numerically not a large body, reaches through its process every part of the nation; its ascendancy is primarily a moral one; it is kept in conformity with final authority by the machinery of appeal; it is "animated with a common purpose"; its members are "panoplied" with what is practically a life tenure of their posts; and it is "armed with the tremendous weapons" which slay legislation. And if the voice of the Church was the voice of God, so the voice of the Court is the voice of the American people as this is recorded in the Constitution.